Woodworking Club Advice

[Kevin Hewitt]

Hi all,

Early this year a few forum friends and I started a woodworking club in the Ottawa, Ontario region. There are currently around 20 members with an average of 8-10 showing up at the meetings. It's a very diversified group when it comes to experience. From a couple of rookies to three professionals. This leads to some interesting topics and responses.

We are currently on a break for the summer as attendance would be next to nothing during the summer months. To date we are having monthly meetings and have had one road trip to Danny Proulx's (a member) shop to see all the projects in his last publication and some of the goodies he has in his shop. We have a few other road trips planned but not arranged as well.

As a group we decided to keep things fairly informal, no executive, no dues etc. We have been meeting at a coffee shop and a library conference room.

I would like to hear what you guys have been doing in your respective clubs.

Thanks,

Gump

[Dave Anderson NH]

Hi Kevin- As you know by now, starting a guild or club is a lot of work. Our NH guild is about 325 members strong and as a result we have to have a newletter, a website, and we plan our programs a year in advance. As your club grows it will become more difficult to function without a set of officers and a steering or executive committee. Without some sort of formal organization things tend to fall through the cracks instead of getting done either in a timely manner or at all. I would suggest that you be prepared with some sort of plan if the group starts to grow. While our newsletter is about 12-14 pages, in color, and has photos, it started as a single page (double sided) and slowly expanded as needed. I can't overestimate the importance of having a newsletter, no matter how small, to facilitate communication and keep everyone up to date with what is going on and is planned for the future. We consider it the glue which binds our group together and it is sent out 5 times per year to keep members informed of planned events, special programs, what members have been up to, tools and lumber for sale by members, and many other items of general interest.

We have gotten large enough that we have a series of sub-groups in our guild to cater to special interests; Granite State Woodturners (an AAW Chapter), Granite State Woodcarvers, BIG (beginner intermediate group), Period Furniture Group. Most of these groups hold separate meetings in addition to attending out every other month guild meeting. Programs are chosen based on a written survey sent out three years ago asking about interests. We try to provide a variety of programs so that no segment of our membership feels left out. While we origionally met in members shops, the group became too large for all but the largest professional shops. Members missed seeing folks' shops and the chance to get ideas about layout, fixtures, jigs, and storage solutions. Two and a half years ago we decided to offer an Autumn and Spring day of small shop meetings to address this problem. There are usually 4-5 concurrent meetings in members shops in different parts of the state with different topics being covered. This allows us to cover topics which only interest a small part of the guild and we have found that most members have a problem deciding which event to choose. The solution for us has been to run the more popular events a second time while continualy adding new topics.

Clubs are fun, are a great means of exchanging knowledge, and bring folks together.